


Spite the Gods and Kill Them (For My Sister)

by athenadykes



Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: (very brief only a slight mention), Baking, Catholicism, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, IMMIGRANT family god, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Kansas City Breath Mints (Blaseball Team), Sisters, Swearing, Weight Issues, a single f bomb bc this is a pg 13 server, based on personal experience oops, not really a fic more just ideas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-22 05:47:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30033993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athenadykes/pseuds/athenadykes
Summary: Izzie and Atlas are Filipino now it's canon and someone asked why Izzie hates the Gods so much and obviously it's because of her complicated family history with religion, colonialism, and generational trauma.Or: Atlas and Izzie are Filipino and their culture is extremely important to them and their relationship dynamic
Relationships: Eizabeth Guerra & Atlas Guerra
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	Spite the Gods and Kill Them (For My Sister)

**Author's Note:**

> Hi I'm Filipino and had thoughts about this, so much so that this evolved from being a tumblr post into being published on here.

Izzie and Atlas cooking with their Lola who immigrated to the states and who just. Throws money at them when their parents aren’t looking but who cares about them deeply and wants them to have a strong sense of family tradition and thinks the best way of doing that is through cooking and baking for them.

Izzie who really loves their Lola and all the recipes that Lola gave her but hates how religious her family is and going to church and how uncomfortable it all is for her but who always gets a card saying Jesus Loves You for Christmas and hates how her Lola talks about Christianity and the Philippines because she can TELL how much of it is from growing up in colonial Philippines. She doesn’t really know how to feel about being her Lola’s perfect granddaughter who cooks and cleans and _listens_ to her. Izzie doesn’t like being the “good” one and she doesn’t like leaving Atlas behind but she doesn’t want to be treated as badly as Atlas is by their family so she stays quiet because she _likes_ doing all of the stuff her family wants her to be, and when she does the things they like it makes it easier for her to do what she wants to do in her spare time– learn to play blaseball.

Meanwhile Atlas is here and as they get older they just hate how restrictive her parents are and get so FRUSTRATED with all the RULES and like gets really embarrassed by her culture and her parents accent and the fact that she has to take leftovers for lunch every day to school and hates how her family treats her because she’s not as perfect as Izzie and she doesn’t love doing all the housewife training stuff that Lola and their mom taught them. She loves playing blaseball and sloftball and getting rough and singing karaoke too loudly at big family parties but her family doesn’t LIKE that because she’s not PERFECT like IZZIE is and it just makes her madder because why does IZZIE get to be interested in blaseball and get praised for it but when SHE does it they tell her to wear dresses and be more like Izzie.

(Izzie got into blaseball so she could feel closer to her sister, Atlas thinks she’s just trying to take something else from her.)

And then they sign onto different teams and just let their hatred and jealously feed into each other. Izzie signed in KC, near their hometown, and Atlas chose to join a team that was as far as her parents would let her. They never talk at Chicago/KC games. They go to family gatherings even after they’ve both signed and everyone talks to them and praises them and gives them money even though they don’t need it because they’re proud and they all bet on blaseball anyways, its easier and more lucrative than the casino now, and still they compliment Izzie on her playing more even though it was Atlas who was on the team in high school and _she_ should be the one who they should be proud of instead of Izzie who only got into it as a HOBBY but now they’re complimenting her on using their Lola’s recipes in her bakery (that she OWNS and PURCHASED using her blaseball money, the family asks Atlas why she hasn’t done anything useful with her money yet and she just says she’s saving it. She doesn’t want to own a business) and she doesn’t have time to be mad at it just be Tired. They ask her why she hasn’t lost any weight yet even if she’s been playing blaseball all this time and she just shrugs it off because it’s nothing she hasn’t heard before

When Atlas gets transferred to KC in Season 3 she doesn’t know how to feel. She’s mostly angry. Izzie on the other hand is just so scared of doing something wrong because she doesn’t know how to make their relationship better and she KNOWS she’s the one who fucked it up and she wants to make it better but Atlas is so resentful and she knows she deserves this but she doesn’t know how to reach out. She tried to reach out to their parents and tell them to be nicer to her because she doesn’t think that they love her but they just insist that they’re only doing what’s best for her so that she could have everything that they didn’t and then they just start talking about Immigrating to the states and American dream stuff and how Atlas should be more like her and she has to take everything she has to not hang up the phone.

Izzie stops going to church after Atlas transfers to KC. It isn’t immediate but it does happen. Atlas had stopped going years ago when she came out to their parents and they didn’t react _well_ (they didn’t react badly either, but the thought of going back to that church with all those people who she knew were judging her and praying for her family made her skin crawl) but they didn’t kick her out. Izzie saw that and kept her sexuality to herself for YEARS because she was so scared that her parents would hate her for not being the perfect child they thought she was 

When Izzie comes out their family reacts way worse, like she expected, and she’s hurt and sad and doesn’t know what to do. She doesn’t want to talk to Atlas about it because she doesn’t want to burden her but she so desperately wants to TALK to her and it’s hard. They don’t really get the chance to until they’re shopping for the things they need to send back to the Philippines one year and it’s awkward but they get through it. They get into some petty argument in the car on the way to their parents house and suddenly they’re shouting and somehow Atlas says something about Izzie being their parents favorite and suddenly Izzie is crying and Atlas is SCARED bc Izzie NEVER cries and Izzie has to pull over to just cry and suddenly she’s telling Atlas everything and Atlas is MORTIFIED because she didn’t KNOW that Izzie was also queer and she felt so bad for treating her like the enemy when really they were on the same team here. And Izzie is apologizing for not standing up for her and for just letting their parents say all that stuff to her and it’s not instant forgiveness because you can’t just erase years of trauma and complicated relationships in a few seconds, but there is understanding.

They aren’t ok right away but they do start talking. About their parents, about their culture, about being ex catholic, about blaseball and just. Start healing. Izzie renames the bakery to what it is now, as a threat to any and all Gods because it’s what tore her family apart and made her and her sister hate each other for so long. Colonialism and religion is what ruined her life and she’s gonna take it all back. Atlas is trying to regain the time spent hating her sister and being mad at the world and trying to do some things to heal, like getting back in touch with her culture after she pushed it away for so long and trying to unpack her trauma in a more constructive way. They both try to start repairing their relationship with their parents. It’s not easy, but they’re all trying.

Eventually, Atlas decides to take up a position in Izzie’s bakery. It’s not perfect and they’ll never be fully ok, but they have each other’s backs and that’s enough for them.

**Author's Note:**

> this is honestly way more personal than I thought it was gonna be so lol that's super fun. i have a lot of thoughts about Izzie and Atlas being Filipino mostly bc i got really excited about them being Filipino. 
> 
> stop making characters with ethnic names white or non human please and thank you <3 i will personally come for you so don't try me <3


End file.
